


all things considered

by cadyjanis



Series: cadnis [8]
Category: Mean Girls - Richmond/Benjamin/Fey
Genre: Alternate Canon, Anxiety, Awkwardness, Cady Heron Has ADHD, Crushes, F/F, First Meetings, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2019-12-30 12:44:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18315500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadyjanis/pseuds/cadyjanis
Summary: so you could say she’s relieved that another girl is here. and she’s not hard to miss: with her half-bleached hair and buzzed side cut, denim jacket littered with pins, patches, and weird little paintings, and fishnet-clad, mile-long legs, she stands out more than most.and cady is entirely unprepared when she turns around as class is starting to ask in a hushed whisper, “hey, do you have a pencil i could borrow?”—what if cady met janis in calculus class instead of aaron?





	all things considered

**Author's Note:**

> i love this concept more than anything so. enjoy this totally self-indulgent piece of garbage

The first day of school hasn’t been _that_ bad, all things considered.

 

Sure, she may have gotten lost on her way to history, and she may have had to correct people on her name more than once, and she may have tripped a couple times and people laughed, and she may have eaten lunch in a bathroom stall.

 

Okay, well. It’s been rocky, no doubt. But it’s not over yet, and Cady Heron isn’t one for giving up, so she takes a deep breath prior to entering Ms. Norbury’s classroom for the second time today. At least Ms. Norbury is a familiar and friendly face as she walks in, a stark contrast to the numerous unsmiling and irritated people taking their seats.

 

“Hey, kid, how’s your day been?” Ms. Norbury asks, clearing off the chalkboard.

 

“Great, thank you,” Cady replies, getting a thrill of validation that her teacher seems to like her. If anyone would, it’d be her.

 

She asks how Ms. Norbury’s day is in return, and it sort of breaks Cady’s heart when the older woman appears temporarily shocked she even thought to ask. Isn’t it just common courtesy to ask the person who asked how your day is how _their_ day is going? America is weird.

 

Though she can’t be surprised when everyone here is, well…rude.

 

Ms. Norbury tells her she’s alright, and thanks her for asking, then says she can pick any seat she wants. Cady naturally gravitates towards the back of the class, plunking herself down in a desk by the back window, drawn to the sunlight. She recognizes the girl in front of her instantly, pleasantly surprised to see her. They sat near each other in homeroom earlier.

 

Cady doesn’t think much of it, but is kind of glad she’s not entirely surrounded by senior guys. It might be a conversation starter if she winds up talking to this girl, since they’re both juniors and the only girls in AP calculus.

 

Cady wasn’t necessarily wary of boys until today. The amount of petty fistfights she’s witnessed and catcalls she’s heard directed at other girls is enough to evoke the fear of God in her heart.

 

So you could say she’s relieved that another girl is here. And she’s not hard to miss: with her half-bleached hair and buzzed side cut, denim jacket littered with pins, patches, and weird little paintings, and fishnet-clad, mile-long legs, she stands out more than most.

 

And Cady is entirely unprepared when she turns around as class is starting to ask in a hushed whisper, “Hey, do you have a pencil I could borrow?”

 

For a moment that feels like centuries long, Cady gets caught in a stare, taken aback. She saw this girl’s face earlier, just not up close, and she was sort of hunched over a sketchpad. So now here she is, maybe a foot away, and to say Cady is breathless would be an understatement.

 

But she needs something, and Cady is always quick to deliver. So she hastily reaches into her backpack and pulls out a spare pencil, offering it. “Yeah, sure, here.”

 

The girl smiles in this cute way that shows all her pretty teeth. “Thanksss,” she says, taking it between long fingers, and they make eye contact for a split second before she turns back around. Cady then fumbles for her own pencil.

 

Cady loves calculus, practically lives and breathes for it, and nothing could ever get in the way of that. But today she has to make an effort to focus, her heart still racing like it never has as she jots down problems. It’s a different kind of anxiety, something that borders on anticipation, similar to what she felt this morning just without the additional nausea.

 

There’s a break as the class is left to study what’s on the board for a bit, and evidently the other girl is either faster than Cady or just less frazzled than she is, because she finishes up first, leaning back in her chair at an angle and playing with her pencil. Cady tries pointedly not to look up, even when she feels the girl glancing at her curiously.

 

“Did you know that your leg bounces?” she murmurs, effectively startling Cady again.

 

“My what?” Her brain feels fuzzy, and she has to look down to realize her knee is bouncing.

 

“I’m not criticizing, I’m just saying,” her classmate reassures as she blushes, rubbing her knee as if to soothe it, really not having noticed it. “Your first day going okay?”

 

“Um.” Cady reluctantly completes a summation, wishing she wasn’t already done. She cracks her knuckles in her lap after putting her pencil down. “Yeah, it’s been good. Thanks.”

 

The girl studies her for a brief pause, then says, “I’m Janis, by the way.” On top of learning her name, how she says it, so smooth and casual, is something else.

 

Cady didn’t know girls could have this effect on her. It’s scary, even though she’s been aware she isn’t what you’d call straight for a long time now. She’s not sure _what_ to call it except sometimes boys pique her interest in a certain way and then sometimes, like right now, so do girls but also in a certain way, and that makes sense only to her.

 

“You’re Caddy, right?” Janis is saying, for Cady took too long to reciprocate.

 

“Oh—yes, sorry, yeah,” Cady confirms, beet red. “Um, it’s pronounced like Cady.”

 

One side of Janis’s mouth lifts in this funny smirk, and she whispers, “Yeah, I’m gonna call you Caddy,” before having the audacity to wink and turn back around, for Ms. Norbury has stood from her desk to continue the lesson.

 

This is just unfair. Janis knows exactly what she’s doing, and Cady is letting her tug at her very weak heartstrings like the helpless sap she is.

 

The rest of the class is uneventful, and by the end Cady is suffering in silence. She practically chokes on air when Janis holds out the pencil, saying, “Thanks, Caddy.”

 

“Oh, you—you can keep it,” Cady stammers, closing her notebook. “If you want.”

 

“Oh. Yeah. Thanks.” Janis grins at her now, different than the first time, and Cady’s heart does all sorts of pathetic tricks. The bell tolls, and she jumps in her seat, knocking her knee on the bottom of her desk, and Janis hisses, in pain by proxy.

 

“Ow,” Cady mouths, not having to wonder how this day could get any worse because it just did. But it brightens again when Janis helps her stand up; Cady is not at all ready for the climactic touch of their hands, but she has to play it cool, holding on for balance a second longer.

 

“Thanks,” she says, hitching her other backpack strap onto her shoulder. Her hand, significantly smaller than Janis’s, tingles now from the absence.

 

“Sure. What’s your next class?” Janis is perfectly unfazed, though she certainly looks like the kind of tough girl who’d keep her shit together even if she felt the same.

 

“Ummm…” Cady digs out her schedule, and her last class is ironically listed as chemistry. She purposefully looks at it so Janis can see it, too, liking how Janis leans her head to read the piece of paper. She also smells really nice.

 

“Darn it. I had chemistry before lunch.” Now Janis looks genuinely disappointed, and her pout is very cute. “But, look, we have French and health together, too. I must’ve missed you.”

 

Cady doesn’t know how she managed to not see Janis, either, but her morning classes went by in a stressful, surreal blur, and in her memory she cannot make out faces, so she tries to cut herself some slack.

 

But she and Janis have more than one class together, so at least there’s that to look forward to tomorrow. Maybe it’ll be easier now that she’s kind of made a friend.

 

“You can sit with me and Damian at lunch,” Janis is suggesting. “Tomorrow. If you want.” She’s echoing Cady’s words back to her and it’s just so _much,_ especially the look she’s giving her, equal parts hopeful and endeared.

 

Well, she doesn’t appear to think Cady is a monumental idiot, so Cady feels confident enough to say, “Yeah, I’d love to. Is he the really tall…flamboyant kid?”

 

She didn’t mean offense by it, and luckily Janis doesn’t take it as such. She laughs out loud, and Cady’s heart soars like it’s taken to doing whenever Janis does literally anything. God. It’s only been an hour.

 

“Yes. He’s very tall and very gay. That’s his whole personality,” she chuckles, and just that short description sells Cady on him.

 

“Well, okay,” she says optimistically. “Grool.”

 

It takes her a second to realize what she said, and Janis visibly tries not to laugh again.

 

“I mean—” Cady grimaces, shaking her head. “Ah. I started to say great but then I said cool, and—yeah.” She clears her throat awkwardly.

 

Janis snickers. “Right. Well. Grool,” she repeats, nodding once. “See you around, Caddy.”

 

Cady gives her a tiny wave and watches her saunter out of the room, calm and collected and probably not freaking out on the inside. And Cady doesn’t correct her again, because when Janis says it, it just sounds right.

 

“You’ll like Janis,” Ms. Norbury says to Cady as her legs finally start working again. “She’s a good kid. I think you two might have a lot in common.”

 

Cady gets the sense there’s more to that than just calculus, but won’t ask her to elaborate.

 

Cady thinks about Janis the entire time she walks home, nearly getting hit by a car at one point because why wouldn’t that happen, and she’s far more flustered when she gets home than she was when she left.

 

Her parents are on the front porch, waiting eagerly, and her dad greets her as she comes up the steps. “Hey, how’d it go?” he asks.

 

“Good,” Cady admits honestly, not even trying to hide her big, dopey smile as she drifts inside.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! kudos and comments are fetch ♡


End file.
